"Gotta turn the world into your dance floor/
Determinate, determinate"
Dear Readers,
If you know the oddly popular song and film this is from, you probably spent too much time as a kid watching Disney Channel and may sneak peeks at it to this day. Sign off of Disney Plus for a moment, fellow human, you have a blog post to read.
I have a lesson to share with you. No matter your walk of life or passions, sometimes it is okay to ask for help or…more importantly…to delegate. This has been a lesson I have learned quite quickly as an indie author. To those who know me, you also know I am a freight train.
I do all of the things.
I complete all of the tasks. I go above and beyond. This approach resulted in quite successful endeavors over the years, but sometimes we all need to delegate. We cannot do everything and honestly, we shouldn’t. I was speaking to another author about all the work there is to do and they came to the same conclusion. As indie authors, we have taken on all the tasks and decided to remain in control of our destinies. That comes with a lot of freedom…but also a lot of responsibility. Sure, I love that I choose every aspect of my marketing design and look. But that means I have to choose every aspect of my marketing design and look!
Now, do not get me wrong. The neurotic, anal retentive control freak in me is living for the indie hustle life, but it is so important to delegate. One, it just makes life easier. There are only so many hours in a day and we probably should not use all of them for work, even for work we love. Two, we only have so much capacity and attention span. Trust me when I say this freight train can get a lot done, but I have my limits. We all do, so know yours. This brings me to my next point about knowing our limits. Three, stop allowing society to demand we tie all of our worth to our productivity or tell us any limitation we have is an inherent weakness that will set us up for failure. Instead, look at it as an opportunity.
Now we get to expand our team or inner circle and yes, everyone should have a team or inner circle. I’ve had one since I was 22 and never looked back. We all need to find a support system or group of humans who are different from us, have different experiences, thrive in different situations, and can help us thrive as well. These humans should be a select few who we value and value us in return. We tap into our superpowers for them and they tap into theirs for us. Said superpowers can range from a best friend who just so happens to be an artist to a mentor who we can vent to about all of the things and receive advice. Build your inner circle and stop allowing yourself to be consumed by every aspect of all the things.
I once told a colleague that it is not important to be the smartest person in the room. It is important to know who the smartest person in the room is at any given time though. That remains true for me. So with all of that said, I am very happy to announce that Team Storm is gaining a few new members soon. If you have not yet, subscribe to my website or follow me on social media to see what’s next for The Absolution Series.
I hope you will take my words to heart. Your worth is not tied to doing all the things, so when in doubt…or just stressed…delegate where you can. It will save you a lot of time that could be spent living a fulfilling life and embracing this complicated, strange world we find ourselves in. And remember, even in the darkest of times, choose love. Choose duty. And who knows, maybe if we do it together, we can all save this world of ours as well.
Happy Reading,
RS
PS: Okay, fine, the song is "Determinate" from the Disney Channel Movie Lemonade Mouth.